Nicaragua, US Company in Oil Spat

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Prensa Latina

Nicaragua, US Company in Oil Spat

Managua, Aug 29 (Prensa Latina) Nicaraguan vice president, Jaime Morales, criticized the lack of cooperation by the US company ESSO for refusing to store Venezuelan oil.

According to the vice president, ESSO "put both feet in" by refusing the use of its storage tanks at a time that the country is going through a serious energy crisis.

If there had been an iota of cooperation by that transnational, all clouds would have vanished, Morales added, referring to the conflict the company currently faces with the Nicaraguan government. The Nicaraguan vice president, however, was hopeful that a satisfactory arrangement could be reached shortly.

ESSO installations were legally impounded 10 days ago at the request of the General Direction of Customs that demands the company pay a debt of almost three million dollars for non-declared import of crude. During the process other company debts to the treasury of almost 20 million dollars were revealed.



Read more: http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID=%7B549EC5E6-DB03-49A1-8C05-5BFDEE5BC20B%7D)&language=EN

[Judi Lynn]

1. Nicaragua embargoes Esso assets in tax dispute

Nicaragua embargoes Esso assets in tax dispute
Tue Aug 21, 2007 9:44PM EDT

MANAGUA (Reuters) - A Nicaraguan judge has embargoed assets of U.S. oil company Esso Standard Oil in a tax payment dispute between the government of leftist President Daniel Ortega and the unit of giant ExxonMobil Corp (XOM.N: Quote, Profile, Research), a government aide said on Tuesday.

"For the first time, the (Nicaraguan) state is asking the big companies to account for themselves," said Ortega aide Bayardo Arce.

Nicaragua is demanding the payment of $2.9 million in taxes, Foreign Minister Samuel Santos said. Texas-based ExxonMobil was not immediately available for comment.

The U.S. Embassy in the Central American nation criticized the move, the first such action against a U.S. company since former Marxist guerrilla Ortega returned to power in January.

"This action by Nicaraguan authorities has the potential to seriously damage economic relations between the United States and Nicaragua. It also has the potential of damaging Nicaragua's foreign investment climate," the embassy said in a statement.
(snip/...)

http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSN2140187520070822

[Judi Lynn]

2. U.S. ambassador demands that Nicaragua return seized Esso storage tanks

U.S. ambassador demands that Nicaragua return seized Esso storage tanks
The Associated Press
Published: August 24, 2007

MANAGUA, Nicaragua: The U.S. ambassador insisted that the Nicaraguan government immediately return a storage terminal seized from a U.S. oil company, saying the takeover threatens foreign investment and is a ploy to promote Venezuelan petroleum products.

A judge embargoed the assets of Esso Standard Oil, owned by Texas-based ExxonMobil, on Aug. 18, saying the company owed US$3 million (€2.2 million) in taxes.

The company says it owes no taxes. Esso spokesman Alfredo Fernandez said Thursday night that the seizure was illegal because Nicaraguan law prohibits a judge from turning over a company's assets to a third party.

U.S. Ambassador Paul Trivelli, who spoke about the matter Thursday night during a public event, said the motive for the seizure was "to persuade Esso to accept Venezuelan petroleum products."
(snip)

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, a former Marxist who spent the 1980s fighting the U.S.-backed Contra rebel insurgency, has promised to maintain ties to Washington and respect private property after returning to power in January.

But he also has cozied up to Venezuelan President and fierce U.S. critic Hugo Chavez, who has promised to send 10,000 barrels of discounted oil daily to Nicaragua as part of an agreement signed with Ortega in January.
(snip/...)

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/08/24/america/LA-GEN-Nicaragua-US-Esso.php



US Ambassador Paul Trivelli

[Judi Lynn]

3. Nicaragua taxes Esso $3 million, embargoes assets

Nicaragua taxes Esso $3 million, embargoes assets

Eric Watkins
Senior Correspondent

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 23 -- Nicaragua's vice-president has ordered Esso Standard Oil to pay $3 million in taxes on allegedly undeclared oil imports, while a judge has embargoed the company's assets.

Vice-President Jaime Morales Carazo said transnational companies are not exempt from paying such taxes, a claim Esso denies. Esso spokesman Alfredo Fernandez said the company owes no taxes because the importation of oil into Nicaragua is tax-exempt by national law.

The Superior Council of Private Business sent a letter to Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega saying that the tax claim and embargo "could damage the image of his government and the nation, which needs so much investment."

The US Embassy in Nicaragua said the move has the potential to seriously damage economic relations between the US and Nicaragua.
(snip/...)

http://www.ogj.com/display_article/304126/7/ONART/none/GenIn/Nicaragua-taxes-Esso-$3-million,-embargoes-assets/

[Judi Lynn]

4. Fatal disease plagues sugar-mill workers in Nicaragua

Fatal disease plagues sugar-mill workers in Nicaragua
Posted on Sun, May. 06, 2007
BY GERARDO REYES
El Nuevo Herald

Multimedia | Fields of Death
LA ISLA, Nicaragua -- Ursula Tobal knows the names of almost all the 20 widows who live on this tiny islet between two narrow streams, and almost all the orphaned children who play in the dusty fields.

The 40-year-old Tobal became a widow herself in late 2005 when her husband, Luis Abraham Martínez, a cane cutter at the nearby San Antonio sugar mill, died of the same disease that has earned this islet the nickname of Island of the Widows.
(snip)

But to many people in this area, the cause is in the chemicals used in sugar-cane fields at the San Antonio and Monte Rosa mills, which produce most of Nicaragua's sugar exported to the United States. The mills flatly deny that they are responsible, and workers who have sued the mills have presented no scientific evidence.
(snip)

But Reyes conceded that neither the government nor the mills have carried out any studies on the causes of CRI. Asked why, he simply said, "I don't understand why not."

The number of victims is so high that three years ago, local residents pressured Nicaragua's national legislature to pass a law defining CRI as an "occupational disease" -- allowing its victims to collect government disability payments.

Many of the affected people worked for San Antonio, a 117-year-old mill that produces 80 percent of Nicaragua's sugar exports to the United States. It is owned by the Pellas family, the country's richest. The family also owns BAC Credomatic Network, a financial network that includes the BAC Florida Bank in Coral Gables.
(snip/...)

http://www.miamiherald.com/949/story/114936.html

[Judi Lynn]

5. ESSO involved in Reagan-era work against the leftist Nica. government

To refresh memories, or to inform people who never heard in the first place:

Nicaragua 1981-1990
Destabilization in slow motion
excerpted from the book
Killing Hope
by William Blum

~snip~
The Reagan administration was not deterred. Cardinal Miguel Obando and the Catholic Church in Nicaragua received hundreds of thousands of dollars in covert aid, from the CIA until 1985, and then-after official US government aid was stopped by congressional oversight committees-from Oliver North's off-the-books operation in the White House basement. One end to which Obando reportedly put the money was "religious instruction" to "thwart the Marxist-Leninist policies of the Sandinistas''.

As part of a concerted effort to deprive the Nicaraguan economy of oil, several attacks on fuel depots were carried out. Contra/CIA operations emanating in Honduras also blew up oil pipelines, mined the waters of oil-unloading ports, and threatened to blow up any approaching oil tankers; at least seven foreign ships were damaged by the mines, including a Soviet tanker with five crewmen reported to be badly injured. Nicaragua's ports were under siege: mortar shelling from high-speed motor launches, aerial bombing and rocket and machine-gun attacks were designed to blockade Nicaragua's exports as well as to starve the country of imports by frightening away foreign shipping. In October 1983, Esso announced that its tankers would no longer carry crude oil to Nicaragua from Mexico, the country's leading supplier; at this point Nicaragua had a 10-day supply of oil.

Agriculture was another prime target. Raids by contras caused extensive damage to crops and demolished tobacco-drying barns, grain silos, irrigation projects, farm houses and machinery; roads, bridges and trucks were destroyed to prevent produce from being moved; numerous state farms and cooperatives were incapacitated and harvesting was prevented other farms still intact were abandoned because of the danger.
And in October 1982, the Standard Fruit Company announced that it was suspending all its banana operations in Nicaragua and the marketing of the fruit in the United States. The American multinational, after a century of enriching itself in the country, and in violation of a contract with the government which extended to 1985, left behind the uncertainty of employment for some 4,000 workers and approximately six million cases of bananas to harvest with neither transport nor market.'

Nicaragua's fishing industry suffered not only from lack of fuel for its boats. The fishing fleet was decimated by mines and attacks, its trawlers idled for want of spare parts due to the US credit blockade. The country lost millions of dollars from reduced shrimp exports.'

It was an American war against Nicaragua. The contras had their own various motivations for wanting to topple the Sandinista government. They did not need to be instigated by the United States. But before the US military arrived in Honduras in the thousands and set up Fortress America, the contras were engaged almost exclusively in hit-and-run forays across the border, small-scale raids on Nicaraguan border patrols and farmers, attacks on patrol boats, and the like; killing a few people here, burning a building down there,' there was no future for the contras in a war such as this against a much larger force. Then the American big guns began to arrive in 1982, along with the air power, the landing strips, the docks, the radar stations, the communications centers, built under the cover of repeated joint US-Honduran military exercises, while thousands of contras were training in Florida and California.
US and "Honduran" reconnaissance planes, usually piloted by Americans, began regular overflights into Nicaragua to photograph bombing and sabotage targets, track Sandinista military maneuvers and equipment, spot the planting of mines, eavesdrop on military communications and map the terrain. Electronic surveillance ships off the coast of Nicaragua partook in the bugging of a nation. Said a former CIA analyst: "Our intelligence from Nicaragua is so good ... we can hear the toilets flush in Managua."
(snip/...)

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blum/Nicaragua_KH.html

[Peace Patriot]

6. Good Christ! The CIA and Ollie North were paying the Catholic Cardinal?!!!

I mean, we know about "Opus Dei" (fascist) cardinals in Latin America, but this is the first I've heard of direct payments. How disgusting! And where was the CIA when our School of the Americas-trained assassins were shooting Archbishop Romera (the "bishop of the poor") on his altar?

Thanks for the info, Judi (and William Blum)!

There are a number of Latin American Cardinals who are going to be burning in Hell!

[Judi Lynn]

7. Looks as if they wanted to pay Obando for being their "boy," while punishing

Bishop Romero for caring for his people, first! With a flashy assassination, they also pick up all the free publicity, priceless admonitions and warnings to any other priests who might be in the dark about what they can expect for working to improve the lives of the desperately downtrodden, and suffering masses in Latin America and the Caribbean.



Obando